1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus which is capable of manual scanning and reads an image of an original or document to form an image on an image forming medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
A handy copying machine for performing a reading or recording operation (image formation) by manual scanning, a scanner (image reading apparatus), serving as a terminal of, e.g., a word processor or a personal computer, to read an image by a manual scanning operation, and a printer (image recording apparatus) for performing a recording operation, are conventionally known.
In the handy copying machine, the scanner, the printer (to be referred to as an "image forming apparatus" hereinafter), or the like, an image can be easily read from three-dimensional objects such as a book or a magazine, and can also be easily recorded on three-dimensional objects such as a notebook. On the contrary, a reading operation from a sheet of original, or a recording operation on a sheet of recording sheet must be performed manually, thus degrading operability. On the other hand, in an image forming apparatus, applied to, e.g., a facsimile, for reading or recording an image by an automatic scanning operation while sheets are conveyed, the above-mentioned reading or recording operation of three-dimensional objects cannot be performed. Therefore, operability is undesirably degraded.